Dolly Parton will serve as a presenter and Wanda Jackson will perform on VH1 Divas Celebrates Soul, which is going to air on December 19. Mavis Staples will also perform. Mick Jagger and Keith Richards are paying for bluesman Hubert Sumlin’s funeral. Ray Wylie Hubbard’s got big plans for 2012, with an album (called The […]

Country music will be played at the 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue on Monday, November 21, as Kris Kristofferson, Alison Krauss, Dierks Bentley, Lyle Lovett and others sing as part of the “Performance at the White House” series. The hour-long program premieres on PBS 11/23; check local listings. Rodney Atkins will perform at the National Christmas Tree […]

Later this month, Keith Urban will undergo throat surgery to remove a polyp from his vocal cords. He’s planning on honoring pre-existing single song commitments, but other appearances and lengthier performances (including his All for the Hall fundraiser) will be postponed and rescheduled in 2012. Chet Flippo’s newest Nashville Skyline column is all about Vince […]

Johnny Cash’s “Folsom Prison Blues” made TIME’s list of the Top 100 English language pop songs since the magazine’s inception in 1923. Jewly Hight of American Songwriter chatted with Shelby Lynne. An excerpt: When I walked into Nashville at 18 years old, I wasn’t encouraged to write anything. It wasn’t top of my list of […]

Celebrating their 30th year together, Sawyer Brown will release their first new project in four years today called Travelin’ Band. It will be available digitally most everywhere but only physically through their website. “We’ve been working on this album so long that they were still called albums when we started working on it,” jokes lead […]

Songwriters: Luke Bryan, Dallas Davidson, Rhett Akins and Ben Hayslip With his last single “Country Girl (Shake it for Me),” Luke Bryan finally forged a memorable identity in mainstream country music. Before the ubiquitous hit took over airwaves this summer, he came close with “Rain is a Good Thing,” a similarly lust-soaked tune about females […]

Alabama reunited to record a track for a new Waylon Jennings tribute album, The Music Inside: A Collaboration Dedicated to Waylon Jennings, that’s due out next Feb. The song, “Are You Sure Hank Done It This Way,” will be released as a single to radio early next week (stream a preview). Other artists appearing on […]

Warner Music Nashville president John Esposito has been getting a lot of credit for releasing Shawn Camp‘s sophomore album, 1994, 16 years after it was recorded, but the discovery also got him to thinking about what else might be buried. As it turns out, there could be a lot. AP entertainment writer Chris Talbott notes […]

Kix Brooks and Ronnie Dunn capped their nearly 20-year career together last Thursday with “Brand New Man,” the same song that helped launch them way back in 1991. Watch a lo-fi video on YouTube (via That Nashville Sound). GAC’s Tom Roland says the show didn’t feel as final as it could have and declares the […]